ANZ reaches settlement agreement with Ross Asset Management investors

ANZ has reached a confidential settlement with former Ross Asset Management investors. Photo / File

ANZ has reached a confidential settlement with a group of investors who were clients of the failed financial advice firm Ross Asset Management and were taking class action against the bank.

In a statement released today by the ANZ the bank said the parties to the class action had acknowledged they were all misled by Ross.

"All matters relating to the settlement are confidential, and the parties will not be commenting further."

Wellington financier and former head of the Ross Asset Management David Ross was jailed for 10 years and 10 months in November 2013 after he defrauded more than 700 clients of $115.5 million.

Only about $10 million has ever been recovered.

Ross pleaded guilty to eight charges, brought by the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Management Authority, for his elaborate scheme which ran from 2000 to 2012.

In mid-2019 a group of Ross Asset Management investors decided to take legal action against ANZ over how it managed the accounts for the failed financial advice firm on the back of investigative work done by the Financial Markets Authority into how the ANZ managed the bank accounts of Ross Asset Management prior to its collapse in late 2012.

In May last year ANZ lost a bid to strike out the action against it in the High Court at Wellington.

The case was due to be heard next year.